A Gemini adaptive optics image of the star 1RSX J160929.1-210524 and its likely ~8 Jupiter-mass companion (within red circle) in this handout released Sept. 15, 2008. Scientists have snapped the first images of a planet outside our solar system that is orbiting a star very much like the sun. In findings announced on Sept. 15, 2008, University of Toronto scientists said they used the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to take direct pictures of the planet, which is about the size of Jupiter but with eight times the mass. This planet and the star it seems to orbit are located in our Milky Way galaxy about 500 light years from Earth, the scientists said. [Photo: NASA]